Kerry boss Eamonn Fitzmaurice is gearing up for a “helter-skelter” return to Pairc Ui Chaoimh for this evening’s Munster final (7pm).

It’s the first football Championship match to be played at the revamped ground as underdogs Cork bid to turn the tables on their arch rivals, who are bidding for a Munster six-in-a-row for the first time since 1980.

“A Kerry-Cork Munster final, there is a special feel about it,” says Fitzmaurice. “There always is.

“It’s like all sports. Regardless of where a Liverpool or Man United are at at a given time, when they play each other in a derby game, it is always going to be helter-skelter and it is always going to be a tight game. I am expecting the same.

“They’re a bit under the radar but I can definitely see signs of a lot of progress from last year.

“It is the first Munster final they’ve had down there against us. It is our first time going down there in four years.

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“There is a special feel about it. If we are going to win, we have to go up and we have to perform and perform close to the top of our ability. If we don’t, we will be beaten.

“We know that ourselves and we’ve shown it plenty of times, we’ve shown it during the League that when we are on and play well, we’re capable of delivering big performances, but when we’re off, we can be poor.

“We need to bring it and we need to play. And if we play at the top of our game, it will take a good team to beat us. It is very black and white.”

With Cork’s relegation to Division Two a couple of years back and Tipperary pipping them to a Munster final spot in 2016, they don’t clash with Kerry quite as often as they used to after a period between 2002 and ‘10 when there were 19 Championship meetings alone.

Fitzmaurice added: “It brings a freshness to the challenge. When we were playing, if you threw in the McGrath Cup, you could end up playing four or five times in the one year.

“There was definitely the dynamic of familiarity breeding contempt. There’s a freshness about the challenge.

“It is in the new Pairc Ui Chaoimh so that brings a new layer of glamour to the thing for supporters, players and management.

“It is an exciting fixture. With Cork, the kind of people they are, they’re going to throw everything at us. We’ve to be ready for that.

“There is a lot of different dynamics to make it a very interesting a fixture. There is definitely a freshness to it, by comparison to when we were playing.”

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